


deep into that darkness peering

by onibi



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games), Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma - Fandom
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Movie Night, Multi, Scary Movies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 02:32:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7600042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onibi/pseuds/onibi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Woah, woah, wait,” Junpei says, “When I said ‘yes’ to movie night, I didn’t know I was saying ‘yes’ to movie night curated by Diana.”<br/>“Don’t worry Junpei, I helped her choose,” Akane says, smiling at him and ruffling his hair.<br/>“That does nothing to comfort me. At all.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	deep into that darkness peering

**Author's Note:**

> i actually don't know if this is an AU or not??? anyway this came from a discussion i had with a friend when we were playing ztd that went 'diana definitely likes scary movies' 'YES and akane too' 'they would have movie nights' 'YES'  
> so here's some post-ztd fluffy nonsense I hope you enjoy it  
> title is of course from 'the raven' by edgar allen poe

“Woah, woah, wait,” Junpei says, “When I said ‘yes’ to movie night, I didn’t know I was saying ‘yes’ to movie night curated by Diana.”

“Don’t worry Junpei, I helped her choose,” Akane says, smiling at him and ruffling his hair.

“That does nothing to comfort me. At all.”

“What’s wrong with Diana’s taste in movies?” Carlos asks. 

The doorbell rings before Junpei has a chance to answer him, and the three of them rush to the door. When they open it, Sigma and Diana are standing on the other side, rugged up in scarves and coats. Diana is holding a bag.

“Good evening!” Carlos says, at the same time Akane says “Diana and Sigma!”, at the same time Junpei says, “Hi guys.”

The two of them are shuffled inside, stripped of their various layers by Carlos and Akane fighting to be the politest. They complain about the weather, exchange pleasantries, and it’s all very, strangely normal. Junpei finds himself feeling warm and calm in a way he hasn’t in a long time.

Then, Akane asks Diana what she’s brought. 

“Oh!” Diana says, her eyes darkening as she reaches into her bag. Beside her, Sigma frowns, looking deeply worried. “Well, I didn’t know how much time we had, so I brought seven movies from my collection, and we can choose which ones and how many,” she says, laying them out of the coffee table. Junpei blanches.

“Ah,” Carlos says, tentatively, “these are certainly all… similar looking.”

Diana looks up at him in shock. Akane punches him gently on the arm, and says, “Carlos! These movies are nothing alike!”

Diana nods fervently. “They’re all very unique, I promise. The plot, the cinematography, the stylistic choices… they are all completely different in each movie.”

Carlos looks back down at the movies, and then at Junpei, who nods in shared understanding. All he sees, as he imagines all Carlos is seeing, are seven very gory looking horror movies. None of them look in the least bit appealing.

Sigma clears his throat. “Diana has made me watch all of these movies before. I don’t have a preference.” From the look on his face, Junpei can assume that this isn’t due to the fact that they are all just tremendously enjoyable.

Junpei scratches the back of his neck, pretending to consider the choices. “Don’t you girls usually want to watch, y’know, those romantic dramas?”

“I’m not averse to any particular genre,” Diana says, “but we can always watch a romantic film if that’s what you want to watch, Junpei.”

Junpei blushes. “That’s not what I’m saying!”

Akane grins at him, and reaches down to the coffee table to pick up a movie that he sees is called BLOOD RIPPERS: THE REVENGE. Akane hands it to him. “I heard this one has a really cute romantic sub-plot, Junpei,” she says. 

Junpei opens his mouth to protest, but the girls are already turning on the tv and dvd player. He takes a seat on the sofa next to Carlos and hopes that it might swallow him whole.

-

As the credits start to roll, Akane gets up from her seat beside Junpei and pumps her fist in the air. “Woo!” she shouts. “That was even better than the first one. Don’t you think?”

She looks vaguely around the room as she says it, but Junpei, for one, does not think. He hasn’t seen the first one, sure, but he can’t imagine that anything could be worse than what he just watched. He’s clutching onto Carlos’ arm, and when he looks up, Carlos doesn’t look to great, either.

After Diana and Akane animatedly discuss the plot twists and nuances of the film that Junpei honestly tries to understand, but even though he’s just seen it, he can’t figure out what the two of them are talking about. Sigma tries to interject with his opinions on character development, which gets the three of them into an argument on who was the best character.

Carlos leans down to Junpei’s ear and says, “does it really matter who the best character was, when they all died?”

Junpei snorts. “Yeah, right?”

Halfway through the next movie, which Junpei discovers is much, much more horrifying than the first, he excuses himself to the bathroom when a particularly gruesome torture scene begins on screen. When he gets back, the screen is paused and everyone is talking over the silence.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Oh, I didn’t want you to miss anything, so I paused it!” Akane says, smiling in a way that comes off as sweet but Junpei definitely detects the deviousness behind it.

He nods. “Great. Fantastic.”

He takes his place back on the sofa in between Carlos and Akane, and when he turns to bury his head in Akane’s chest, she just laughs softly and strokes his hair.

The credits finally roll and Junpei looks up, sighing with relief.

“You know what?” Carlos says, and Junpei looks at him hopefully, because maybe Carlos is calling it a night for all of them and Diana and Sigma can go home and he can try to scrub his brain clean of monsters and death traps, but no. Carlos betrays him. “That was actually pretty great.”

Junpei scrunches up his face in horror, while Akane jumps up excitedly and says, “Yes! I knew it! I knew you had good taste!” and leans over to smack a loud, obnoxious kiss onto Carlos’ mouth.

“Good taste?” Junpei huffs. “I’m starting to think none of you in here have actually ever seen a decent movie!”

Diana smiles. “But we just watched two great movies, Junpei.”

He looks at Sigma, his last bastion of hope in this sea of madness, but he just shrugs. “They’re kind of fun.”

Junpei groans and slides down the cushions and onto the floor.

-

They’re only fifteen minutes into the third movie when Junpei gets up and turns the screen off. There’s a chorus of ‘hey’ and ‘what’, but he just throws his hands up in the air. “I can’t take this anymore. These movies are horrible, and I can’t understand why any of you can bear to watch them!”

Someone turns on the lights, and he sees that Diana is looking heartbroken. “Junpei,” she says, “I’m really sorry. If you were too scared to watch them, you really could have just said.”

He feels his face heating up. “I’m not - I’m not too scared! Please. If you four can handle them, then of course I could. They’re just… bad.”

The four of them exchange looks, and Junpei huffs and crosses his arms. “It’s fine. If you want to watch this, I can just go to bed.”

He storms out of the room, and a few minutes later, he hears the sounds of screaming from the living room. He grabs a pillow and holds in over his ears.

-

It’s a few hours later when, after he hears Sigma and Diana leave, Carlos and Akane come into the bedroom. Junpei’s pretending to be asleep as they crawl in either side of him. 

“Junpei,” Akane whispers, and he huffs again.

“What.”

“We’re sorry you were scared by the movies,” Carlos says.

“I wasn’t-“

“Right, sorry,” he says. “We’re sorry you didn’t like them.”

He feels Akane nod, her face pressed to his back. “Next time, you can choose the movies.”

Junpei is quiet for a few minutes, but then he bites his lip and says, “Really?”

“Really,” Carlos replies, and leans over to press a kiss to his forehead.

He’s glad they can’t see him grinning in the dark. He finally lets his body relax, and for a few minutes, he thinks he might be able to sleep, until he remembers the stretchy inside-out man from the second movie.

He wakes up completely tangled up in blankets, and the two people he loves most in the world.


End file.
